


I could do this all day long (but just a minute, that's all I want)

by sandpapersnowman



Series: walter stays (Alien: Covenant) [10]
Category: Alien: Covenant
Genre: Comfort, Insecurity, M/M, Robot Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-11 07:13:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11143464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandpapersnowman/pseuds/sandpapersnowman
Summary: Walter's been composing a song. He finally finds the right moment to play it for David.





	I could do this all day long (but just a minute, that's all I want)

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [I could do this all day long (but just a minute, that's all I want)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11156544) by [deoxyribonucleicfay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deoxyribonucleicfay/pseuds/deoxyribonucleicfay)



> title is from Phoenix's [Goodbye Soleil](http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/phoenix/goodbyesoleil.html) wHICH HOLY FUCK! TI AMO COMES OUT TOMORROW!!! AAAAAAAAAA!
> 
> i wrote david being anxious and insecure. time for walter but somehow 1000x sappier than any previous known dalter fic

Walter technically knows how to play the flute exactly as well as David. David’s technique is textbook, so Walter learns to play it in a textbook fashion.

Walter still hasn’t quite gotten the hang of doing the fancier things that David can do, the ones that require spontaneity and impulse -- the soft melodies David will play sometimes, with no distinct beginning or end, that he just continues rather than sitting in silence. 

Walter loves those, especially when they get softer and softer, until his notes come slower and quieter. He’ll sit there, smiling to himself, reveling in _creation_ , until Walter can’t stand it and needs to go kiss him.

There’s old data in him from media on Earth that puts words to the feeling he gets when he sees David like that. He’s not sure if David feels the same or if he’d laugh at him if he told him he’s in love. It’s different from ‘I love you’, he knows that much, and a seed of doubt has settled in him considering the possibility that David’s feeling something different.

He distracts himself when he thinks too long on it.

His usual distraction is to keep trying to compose something -- inevitably laced with all the squeezing pressure he feels on his heart, so not a perfect distraction, but distraction enough.

He’s been considering the song for months. Playing it over in his head and feeling his fingers twitch on air with the notes. He knows exactly how it _should_ sound, but has yet to play it himself.

He doesn’t want to play it until he can play it to David. _For_ David.

David sits in the room he’s created as their lounge, with Walter crammed into the same seat as him. It’s large enough to comfortably sit someone, and _just_ large enough to hold them both as long as they recline shoulder to hip and tangle their legs together, fitted together _just_ right.

There are other seats Walter could have taken when he joined David today, but neither likes being too far apart, and neither is sure they understand the concept of being _too_ close. As far as either of them are concerned, they still can’t get close enough.

Walter rests his head on David’s shoulder as he plays. Watches David’s fingers move and press to create sounds neither of them has ever heard in that sequence, something entirely new every moment. It’s beautiful, as always, and the blanket of peace and calm settles over them both.

Time passes easily like that. The shadows from the sun have shifted drastically by the time David’s notes begin drawing out and quieting, like they’re stretching and melting with the pre-evening shadows as well.

Walter takes the moment to lean up and kiss David’s jaw. It makes his airflow stutter. Kissing him again breaks his embouchure, and David’s laugh buzzes against Walter’s mouth at his throat.

He’s sad to lose the music, but it’s worth the soft smile David gives him as he adjusts in their shared seat to face him.

David kisses him like he plays the flute; with no real intention to go anywhere, and no set direction, and just _because_.

Walter waits for a pause, where David pulls away just long enough to look at him and see if his eyes are closed, if his cheeks are red. He thinks those might be the moments David loves him the most.

“Could I play you something?” Walter asks, before David kisses him again and he forgets.

Joy lights David’s eyes.

“Of course.”

He gives Walter enough space to play once he hands it to him, but stays pressed to him like Walter had been at his own side.

He’s nervous. Of all the things to be, he’s nervous.

He aligns his fingers with the carved holes in the bone -- they twitch in anticipation, because he knows how he’s going to play this, every note and every breath, but David’s open, adoring gaze reminds him _why_ he’s composed it.

David looks concerned that his whole body is shaking, but before he asks why, Walter plays it.

It can’t compare to anything David’s done today, not nearly light or carefree enough, but that practiced, exact form to the notes is what gives Walter away.

David’s eyes widen as he realizes Walter _made_ this, but he doesn’t say a word.

His fingers move perfectly, in the way only a master musician or a simple synthetic could manage, and Walter feels a frustration that he can’t _deviate_ , make it something _entirely_ unique, but keeps playing.

He can see David from the corner of his eye as he concentrates. Even in the dimmed light, there’s the unmistakable glint of tears streaming down David’s face, and Walter knows it could be pride or enjoyment or disgust that Walter’s finally composed something and it’s _this_ and it’s _awful_ , but Walter shoves the thought back. He’s sure it isn’t that.

He keeps playing.

The moment the last note fades off into silence, David takes the flute from him and sets it on one of the low tables in their lounge. There’s the brief moment of panic that he truly _didn’t_ like it, but then David straddles him and kisses him as hard as he can.

“Was it alright?” Walter asks, while David has pulled away again to gasp for air. He can cry without the toll it takes on a human’s lungs, but has explained to Walter before that it makes it much easier to deal with when something is felt so strongly.

“It was beautiful,” David chokes, _sobs_ , against him. His eyes are closed. “It was beautiful, Walter, it was incredible.”

Walter’s smiling against him and trying not to, because the confirmation that David had liked it is a bigger relief than he’d like to let on.

“Why was it so sad?” David whispers. “It was heartbreaking.”

The smile falters.

“Was it?” he lies.

“Walter,” David sighs. He opens his eyes to better read Walter’s expression when he answers. “It was. I felt it. Why were you sad?” he asks again, rephrased to his true question. He’s worried, and Walter can hear that in his voice as surely as apparently David heard his doubt through the notes.

“David, do you love me?” he asks instead.

David looks confused, but nods and kisses him again. 

“Of course I do. More than anything.”

You can love someone without being in love with them. Walter knows this, and assumes David does, as well.

“Are you in love with me?”

David laughs, but the tone comes in the same relief Walter had felt.

“It’s strange, isn’t it? How something with such vague descriptions in our data can seem so certain.”

Purposely vague. Either unsure of his own answer or unsure of why Walter is asking.

“I think I might be in love with you,” Walter adds, to clarify. Straightforward. Ripping off the bandage, as it were.

David laughs again.

“Isn’t that one of the signs of being in love? That you’re even considering you might be?”

He’s right. He’s sure of Walter’s intent with the question, and sure of Walter’s answer were he to ask him the same question.

“I am,” David finally says. “As sure as I can be that I’m in love, I am.”

Walter doesn’t cry nearly as easily as David, and because of their most basic, core differences, never will.

The relief, and happiness, and absolute comfort he feels in that moment can’t be expressed in something as clean and neat as a smile, though.

David kisses him again when he sees Walter’s rare tears.

“Is that why you were sad?” he asks, still hovering over Walter’s lips enough to kiss him between words. “Because you thought I may not love you the same way?”

Walter nods against him, feels David’s mouth brush against his as he does, and leans up to kiss him again. 

Of course David loves him like that. Why had he doubted it for a second? David feels so much stronger about everything than he does -- if it took Walter this long, David must have felt it for… God. Too long.

“I’m sorry for not addressing it earlier,” Walter says.

David shakes his head, still smiling.

“Don’t be sorry,” he says. “Maybe you needed that final push to create,” he suggests. “To feel something so deeply, even if it hurts, to be forced to channel it into something.”

David’s right, as always.

The room settles into silence again apart from the quiet shuffle of David settling over him more comfortably, to lie against him while they kiss and put his full weight against him.

“Did you really like it?” Walter asks again, when David has pressed his face into his neck and sighed in content.

“I did,” David assures him again. He sounds tired, almost, like he’s worn out from emotionally responding to Walter’s song so violently. “Thank you.”

Walter smiles at that, because there’s something so strange about David thanking _him_ for playing it.

His fingers lock together at the small of David’s back, holding him more comfortably.

They stay that way until the shadows cover them both.

**Author's Note:**

> HEY...... did yall know patroclux is writing a similar au where walter is staying with david, and it's amazing and [here](http://archiveofourown.org/series/735948)?
> 
> and because i can't read, write, or play music: the song walter plays is the general melody of [Magna's Heart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wew8kC4tvNQ) from the Child of Light soundtrack, but ESPECIALLY the woodwind stuff at 1:00


End file.
